My guardian said no more, and Mr Vholes arrived. He was modestly impressed by Mr Kenge’s professional eminence.

“How do you do, Mr Vholes? Willl you be so good as to take a chair here by me, and look over this paper?”

Mr Vholes did as he was asked, and seemed to read it every word. He was not excited by it; but he was not excited by anything. When he had well examined it, he retired with Mr Kenge into a window, and shading his mouth with his black glove, spoke to him at some length. I was not surprised to observe Mr Kenge inclined to dispute what he said before he had said much, for I knew that no two people ever did agree about anything in Jarndyce and Jarndyce. But he seemed to get the better of Mr Kenge too, in a conversation that sounded as if it were almost composed of the words, “Receiver-General,” “Accountant- General,” “Report,” “Estate,” and “Costs.” When they had finished, they came back to Mr Kenge’s table, and spoke aloud.

“Well! But this is a very remarkable document, Mr Vholes,” said Mr Kenge.

Mr Vholes said, “Very much so.”

“And a very important document, Mr Vholes,” said Mr Kenge.

Again Mr Vholes said, “Very much so.”

“And as you say, Mr Vholes, when the cause is in the paper next Term, this document will be an unexpected and interesting feature in it,” said Mr Kenge, looking loftily at my guardian.

Mr Vholes was gratified, as a smaller practitioner striving to keep respectable, to be confirmed in any opinion of his own by such an authority.

“And when,” asked my guardian, rising after a pause, during which Mr Kenge had rattled his money and Mr Vholes had picked his pimples, “when is next term?”

“Next term, Mr Jarndyce, will be next month,” said Mr Kenge. “Of course we shall at once proceed to do what is necessary with this document, and to collect the necessary evidence concerning it; and of course you will receive our usual notification of the Cause being in the paper.”

“To which I shall pay, of course, my usual attention.”

“Still bent, my dear sir,” said Mr Kenge, shewing us through the outer office to the door, “still bent, even with your enlarged mind, on echoing a popular prejudice? We are a prosperous community, Mr Jarndyce, a very prosperous community. We are a great country, Mr Jarndyce, we are a very great country. This is a great system, Mr Jarndyce, and would you wish a great country to have a little system? Now, really, really!”

He said this at the stair-head, gently moving his right hand as if it were a silver trowel, with which to spread the cement of his words on the structure of the system, and consolidate it for a thousand ages.